Reading Response A
For Tuesday, 27 January, please read the first half of Dispute Between a Man and His Ba. Start by reading the commentary in the “Commentary and translation” link, and then read the first half (up until the formatting change) of the translation in the “Translation to read” link. If you can put the translations from the first and the second link side-by-side and read them together, that’s even better. (That’s what we’ll do in class. We’ll also look at the third, more literal translation).
Keep in mind as you read that there is no consensus on whether the man is contemplating suicide or is just depairing of life and asking about its value and purpose.
For your response,
1. Identify three words in the reading that you didn’t know before, or weren’t sure you had right. Look them up and define them in your own words in a way that makes sense for their use in the text. (Or try your best. This text doesn’t give you too many context clues!)
2. Identify a short passage (just one or two sentences) from the first half of the text that you find unclear, but evocative or fascinating. Speculate about what it might mean. Then speculate about something else it might mean. If you’re not at 200 words yet, speculate about a third thing it might mean. (This section should be a minimum of 200 words.)
Reading Response B
For Thursday, 29 January, please read the rest of Dispute Between a Man and His Ba and listen to this podcast episode. It’s 23 minutes long, and it’ll probably be fine to listen at 1.5x speed.
For your response,
1. Identify three words in the reading that you didn’t know before, or weren’t sure you had right. Look them up and define them in your own words in a way that makes sense for their use in the text. This can be really short. (Or try your best. This text doesn’t give you too many context clues!)
2. What’s something in this work (first half or second) that you’re thinking about differently (or thinking about a different aspect of) after listening to the podcast episode? This section should be a minimum of 150 words.
Activity
To whom can I speak today?
Over the next week, look out for moments when you turn to others for support. Take down some notes in the Google Doc for this assignment—just a few words, so you remember later.
At the end of the week, look over your notes. In a minimum of 300 words, answer these questions (leaving out details or entire topics that you’re not comfortable sharing). Are there patterns that you see? Are there specific kinds of problems that you seek out others for help with, or ways to seek out support that you find easier than others? Are there other things going on in your life that you should probably talk to someone about, but don’t? Why not?
Please complete this in the Google Doc linked here. This will allow me to see that you have really thought about it and taken notes over a week’s time rather than just coming up with some stuff all at once at the end of the week. This will hopefully, in turn, help remind and motivate you to get used to doing a daily check-in on the weekly Activities for this class. This will be a good habit to develop; we’ll have several more daily-practice, daily-reflection, and journaling Activity assignments. If you are unable to complete work in the Google Doc (for example, if you won’t have regular internet access over the week), let me know and we can modify things to accommodate.
You should receive the grading rubric along with your Google Doc. This is the standard rubric for Activity assignments. Since you’re not required to quote from or refer directly to the the text for this activity, the “engaged” and “shows understanding” criteria will be assessed just on whether it seems like you’ve been thinking about topics and questions that came up in our discussion of the text. This should be a very easy standard to meet if you were in class or, if not, if you got caught up using the classroom recordings.